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“Totalitarian” Turkey Bans Twitter – What’s Next For Erdogan?

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Protestors in Turkey call for end to Erdogan initiated ban on Twitter
Protestors in Turkey call for end to Erdogan initiated ban on Twitter
Mavens in the social media market as well as online political heavyweights have been scrupulously monitoring the latest draconian measures implemented by the ever increasingly despotic Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Thrashing about in vein attempts to retain his tenuous power, the embattled Erdogan has again decided to vanquish the use of Twitter in order to significantly muffle public dissent. Because Erdogan is front and center in a burgeoning corruption scandal, he is sweating proverbial bullets as the number of his vocal critics increase dramatically.

In a macabre attempt to define Twitter as a social network riddled with disorder, chaos and a pronounced American cultural bent, Erdogan began using such modalities during his brutal crackdown on protestors in Gezi Park in Istanbul last summer. He equated both the protestors and their choice of communication, namely Twitter, as seditious forces with a clear agenda to open the doors to anarchy and chaos.

If that wasn’t a persuasive enough diatribe for the Turkish masses to digest, Erdogan has previously targeted Facebook and YouTube as disruptors of privacy and charged them with not obeying Turkish court orders.

Well, the 10 million Twitter users in Turkey just won’t buy Erdogan’s pitifully bogus rants.  They have used both their individual and collective ingenuity towards devising ways to work around the ban.

According to news reports, the hashtag #TwitterisblockedinTurkey was trending globally as free-speech supporters around the world voiced their concerns. It was also made known that a Turkish website, Zete.com, announced that 2.5 million tweets had been posted since the ban, reportedly setting traffic records in Turkey.

The New York Times reported that  the Turkish Journalists’ Association, the country’s largest with 3,300 members, filed a complaint in an Ankara court over the ban, while two Internet lawyers challenged the ban at the Constitutional Court of Turkey.

Erdogan’s vitriolic campaign to eradicate vocal dissent and political opposition will continue to face formidable challenges as the secular, progressive youth of Turkey take to the social media airwaves in droves.

What will be next on Erdogan’s to-do list?  Because he utilizes executive powers so free-handedly in his autocratic pursuits, he could take tougher and more lethal steps. As long as the hordes of global social media fans are glued to their devices, the people of Turkey will stand a  fighting chance to challenge the reprehensible venalities that have come to be associated with the Erdogan presidency.

A word of advice to Turkey and other regimes of that ilk.  Muzzling the masses does not work. Your repeated failed attempts should have been more than ample proof that it is a matter of time before your will have to confront your electorate and face the charges against you. So, Mr. Erdogan, if you haven’t figured it out by now, the name of the game is accountability and transparency. That’s the direction that the world is traversing in, so get with the program or get out.

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